


Change or Die

by tod_von_mii



Series: Raison d'être [10]
Category: Elisabeth - Levay/Kunze
Genre: Gen, Half-Hearted Homicide Attempt, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:27:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25042378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tod_von_mii/pseuds/tod_von_mii
Summary: It began as a mantra, and ended as a curse.
Relationships: Elisabeth von Österreich-Ungarn | Elisabeth of Bavaria & Rudolf von Österreich-Ungarn, Rudolf von Österreich-Ungarn | Rudolf Crown Prince of Austria & Der Tod | Death (Elisabeth)
Series: Raison d'être [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1813564
Kudos: 8





	Change or Die

**Author's Note:**

> See if you can spot the reference to [Jedem gibt er das Seine](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1627565) by [Fyre](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fyre/pseuds/Fyre)!

Just as one may smile, and smile, and be a villain, a man could have nothing but the welfare of others in mind, yet harm them anyway - and with a clean conscience. Kaiser Franz Joseph was a perfect example.

"The Kaiser is a good man, a noble man, dedicated to doing what he thinks is right. Unfortunately, this has positioned him against progress - his conviction has made him deaf to pleas that would encourage him to change." Herr Thanatos had the look of someone who was somehow surprised and not surprised at the same time.

"Father refuses to see reason," Rudolf summarized.

"He may still see you as a child. No matter how old you are, those who knew you when you were a child may find it hard to think of you as anything else. Even in the afterlife." He smiled, then his disgusted look returned, stronger than before. "But it's not so endearing when he's damning an empire."

"When have goals of revolutionaries been achieved by asking nicely? If you are seen as an equal, or as a threat, you are more likely to get somewhere with reason." Rudolf scowled. "Must I be a gadfly?"

"Sometimes the ends justify the means. When the means justify the ends, we call it honour." Herr Thanatos looked upwards in thought for a few seconds. "But maybe you can have your cake and eat it too. Stand still while I eyle."

He moved his thumb in a circle while moving his hand over Rudolf's face.

"See? Now you don't look like yourself. With a change of clothes, you have zero chance of being recognized." He chuckled. "You look quite a bit like me."

Rudolf looked in the mirror, and noted his normally straight, dark hair had become wavier and slightly lighter, and his face seemed wider and a good deal paler.

He held up his hand in front of his face, confirming that the mirror wasn't playing tricks on him. "I look as if I've seen a ghost. But this is very clever, thank you."

"You're welcome, but this is an entirely selfish endeavour on my part - I also want to see the empire change or die. Perhaps that could be your motto - 'change, or die!' has a punchy ring to it."

* * *

As far as the Kaiser was concerned, protests were like life itself - tales told by idiots, full of sound and fury, but signifying nothing. But Herr Thanatos suspected his objection was related to the nature of life.

"It isn't just a changed, weak empire that he fears. You trying to do what he does makes him think of his slow decline into irrelevance, his mortality, so you can understand why he's apprehensive. But it is one thing to fear, and quite another thing to bind people in an attempt to quell your fear."

"A sort of 'change _and_ die'. I suppose getting enough of his attention for him to consciously dismiss the concept is the first step, though." Rudolf shuddered. "But when we quarreled... I felt terribly sick, and noticed my hand looked as pale as it did when you disguised me. Then he commented on my appearance, and I felt even sicker, so I ran off like a skittish buck."

Herr Thanatos's eyes flashed with tension. "...It seems as if part of you was using your disguise the way a pufferfish inflates itself. The less he sees it, the easier your life will be."

"I am extremely tempted to drink until I am numb." The lurching feeling in Rudolf's stomach grew stronger.

"You jest, but your situation is an unenviable one, and that would be part of the least bad option. Keeping your head down, drowning yourself in a variety of distractions, biding your time, and hoping that when the Kaiser has passed away, you still have the motivation and wits to work your will upon the empire. The fact that I believe that is the best option should tell you something about the others. The second is assassination - you will be the first suspect, and even if it was never traced back to you, Valerie would be devastated."

"And Gisela."

"Yes, her too. And if they found out you did it, they would be furious at you, to say nothing of the general populace. It is practically guaranteed to be a pyrrhic victory at best. The final option is suicide, of course, if you think this is too much for you, but you lose the best earthly advocate for your goals, and everyone you love will be devastated."

Rudolf tried to swallow the tension that got stuck in his throat. "The first. I just have to be patient."

"Good. It may not seem noble, but it's the most heroic option." Herr Thanatos grabbed his shoulder. "I'm sure if the Kaiser wasn't hell-bent on you becoming like him, he'd be very proud of you for hanging on to the planks of a sinking ship for the chance to improve the world. I certainly am."

* * *

And distract himself he did! He indulged in all the normal pursuits men his age often enjoyed, such as women, wine, hunting, and song. When Mama was home and exercising until she dropped, he would forget everything else and join her. She didn't like to say much to him, but his heart still felt warm after soaking in their companionable silence... even if he had to help her up off the floor when she fainted.

"We are so much alike, you and I," he said with a chuckle when she came to after bungling a particularly ambitious maneuver.

"Oh, thank you," she breathed. "But don't sell yourself short - you also take after your father."

He reflexively winced.

* * *

The court didn't think Rudolf's hobbies, soothing as they were, became someone of his social stature. The Kaiser tut-tutted in turn, not knowing or caring that those forbidden fruits were keeping Rudolf from losing his mind. Worse, he was considering "lightening his burden" by disinheriting him.

All that biding his time would be for nothing. In a situation without long-term rewards, impulse and improvisation would be his salvation.

Rudolf begged Mama to get Father to see reason. She hugged him tighter than she ever had in his adult life.

"He refuses to eliminate the possibility. It's all up to you, so do what you have to do."

They both wept, despairing over their powerlessness, the embalmed corpse of an empire they were stuck in, and the forces that turned virtues into vices.

"Don't worry, Mama. I will make things better."

"And if you can't, maybe this world deserves to perish," she whispered into his ear so that only he could hear.

Rudolf could've sworn he felt a third person hugging both of them, and looked up to make sure it wasn't Father. Thankfully, he was nowhere to be seen.

* * *

The Kaiser was the picture of sturdy paternalism, willing to suffer and sacrifice for what he believed in. But Rudolf supposed everyone had their blind spots, and he had the misfortune to be in one - guiltlessly making other people suffer and sacrifice along with him.

But as promised, Herr Thanatos was at his side. He felt a little better knowing that.

"Surely there are more important things to worry about than how I spend my leisure time?"

"You are mistaken, Rudolf," the Kaiser said in an even tone of voice. "Your hobbies are not becoming of a ruler of an empire, but more importantly, you are willing to discard traditions in favour of mere notions. Traditions are the bricks that form the foundation of a society. You can remove a few of them without harm, but if you remove too many, it will collapse. If you replace them with new traditions, then it is no longer the same society, a society that has stood the test of time."

The pressure to say something, anything, only increased, even as the world went half-silent and his ears began to ring.

"We must let in new ideas, not simply preserve what we already have, or else we won't survive, much less thrive. We must not eschew a new, healthy plant in favour of gilding a wilting lily."

"Rudolf, if you are to be an effective ruler, you must sand off your rougher edges. An emperor must walk a tightrope, must command his subjects while serving them, and above all else, make sure his empire will flourish long after he has breathed his last. Perhaps your mother's insistence that she have control of your education is to blame, and you didn't learn these important lessons. But it's never to late to learn them, and I have faith that you can. You are a Habsburg, after all."

Something inside of him twisted and strained. All his meticulously researched and well-crafted arguments were stuck on his tongue, too heavy to leap out of his mouth. Only the mantra came out: "Change, or die!"

Maybe he sounded like a lunatic, but it was a better fate than being a mute lunatic. So he continued chanting it with every step he took, to the rhythm of what he imagined was a normal heartbeat. His own was either too fast or too slow - he couldn't tell. Not through the sickening haze that washed over him and made him sick to his stomach.

"Change, or..."

He pulled out his pistol and brandished it at the Kaiser, who gasped.

A surge of feverish regret and impending doom raced through his veins. He had shown his hand, and of course the emperor called for his guards. He now knew his son harboured thoughts of patricide, making him a true enemy of the state, and a betrayer of his family besides. Gisela and Marie Valerie would doubtless be disgusted with him...

He couldn't change. Not the world, not himself.

He turned the gun around.

* * *

The next thing he knew, Rudolf was face to face with Herr Thanatos, who had his hands on Rudolf's shoulders, a surprised expression on his face, and a tear in his left eye.

"Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn..." Rudolf hissed. After the fifth time, he stopped counting.

"You certainly surprised your father. But you're not damned, not in any metaphysical sense."

"I'm damned in every other sense. I failed, and what's more, I died like an enemy of the empire. If I hadn't lost my composure by obsessing over a mere possibility, I could've waited for my father to die, then I could've ascended to the throne."

"He's not your father, and he signed the empire's suicide note." His voice morphed into something both burning hot and freezing cold. "I hate it and I hate him for what they've done to you and her. I will make things better." Having made his declaration of war, he exhaled. "I just wish you could've outlived it."

"If I hadn't lost my head and tried to reason with the unreasonable like Kant returning an axe-" Rudolf's voice caught in his throat.

"Rudolf." He placed a firm hand on his trembling one. "What's done is done. Leave the land of the living to the living. You may rest, my son."

"Son!? I'm your son?" That levitated him above his regret for a few seconds. "How...?"

"Yes. Now that you are dead, you have no need for the glamour that made you look like a child of the Kaiser. Your mother is your mother, but I am your father. And the usual way."

As they walked through the fog, Herr Thanatos - Papa, he supposed - began to sing in an absent-minded manner.

"Schlafe, mein Prinzchen, schlaf ein," he crooned. "Schäfchen ruh'n und Vögelein..."


End file.
